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We’ve only got to wait to May 20th before we can all pile onto the Brink servers and run around pretending to be peculiarly proportioned men. I can’t wait! There’s a video out that explains the abilities and missions that some of these men will face in the moments between shooting each other. These subdivisions of shootermen will be called “classes”, each with its own skills and things. Clever, I know.

And – my goodness – it’s looking good. Go take a look, below.

I like the spinning weapons the best. I’d play a game that was just spinning weapons and nothing else. But in all seriousness, I am praying that this is good. I need a new multi-player shooter to get stuck into it. I want this to be it.

Yeah, if I was a repeat offender in The Simpons then it’s safe to assume that my knuckles wouldn’t be tattooed LUV HAT because, quite honestly, I do not. That whole monetized farce has only served to cement my disinterest.

I know exactly what you mean. I was never able to get into TF2, but this looks like it might be what Im looking for. Colorful graphics without tons of bloom, great art design, Mirror’s Edge style parkour and best of all, objective based multiplayer.

I was big into TFC so I jumped into TF2 headfirst for about the first year – when they started issuing weapons to fix issues while keeping them locked with achievements was about when I started losing interest.
I hoped for awhile they’d correct that path, but instead dove into it far deeper than I imagined.
It’s not really causal but the increase of hats correlates with my declining interest in it.

Brink on the other hand I’m very much looking forward to – I’m cautiously optimistic about it, but it definitely has some clear potential.

Nobody misses any of you in TF2. The population is large and just as strong as it’s ever been. You are the ones missing out. Hats have nothing to do with anything, and the extra weapons are a good thing. Not a bad thing. Once again, new weapons for free are a good thing. The fact that you can pay for them if you want means nothing to me. I have a backpack absolutely full of stuff I didn’t pay for.

For God’s sake, stop whining. You don’t have to participate in the trading. You don’t even have to look at the hats if you install that script. The gameplay is still top-notch and all the peripheral stuff just keeps the population and the game fresh. I agree with Bungle, you’re missing out and we don’t miss you.

No shit we’re not missed. Our absence isn’t felt at the Justin Bieber fan club either, so I don’t get your point. But you do seem rather desperate to defend your gaming habits, like somehow you think they need defending.

I just didn’t really like TF2 – way before the hats were added. I tried to play it for a few days, but it just felt wrong for some reason – and I did used to enjoy the original TF, and also TFC. TF2 might appeal to a large number of players, but so does the CoD series – and I certainly wouldn’t rate CoD’s MP experience as one of the best – by a mile. Huge player bases are drawn to simple games like TF2 – it’s a toy, compared to SD’s take on objective-based play.

Well, it’s being released on Xbox too (and uses a different rendering engine to previous ID Tech 4 games like Doom 3), so I’m guessing the Windows verion will use DirectX as well. Of course, they are also releasing on PS3 which can support some implementation of OpenGL, although I reckon they will most likely be using Sony’s proprietary API. So there probably won’t be a Linux version (it certainly hasn’t been announced as far as I’m aware).

I think what he’s getting at is that this video doesn’t really show much that is new – we’ve had soldier, medic and engineer classes in loads of MP shooters before, so it’s hard to get excited by this video.
Of course, that’s not to say the game is going to be crap, because it has lots of other things going for it besides the rather unoriginal classes, for example the rather interesting movement, the dynamic ‘goal’ sytem and the customisation. But this video doesn’t really make it look as unique and interesting as some of the previous ones, rather it comes off as a kind of TF2 clone with a bit less of the charm (they really need to re-do all those voices…)

my point, which was illustrated through sarcasm, is that this video is trying to be impressive by laying out what is essentially the same class system of every other class-based multiplayer shooter. the 16 players things was just a guess.

I just hope that all those “Do the thing your class is supposed to do” objectives don’t really show up in the dynamic mission wheel thingy. If so, they might as well have one that says “shoot the other team”.

They’ve decoupled body from class. After an early-game unlock to make sure people know what’s what with SMART any class can be a heavy bodytype carrying heavy weapons, though if you want to have a lot of ammo you’ll need to be a soldier or near one.

God, why do they keep making these trailers on the console verison, looks like shit compared to PC. In fact, I remember reading an article recently that said just that.

**”Finally, I’d played a version of Brink at Gamescom in Germany last year on the PC, an experience I recall being visually rich, noticeably smooth. This version (played on a PlayStation 3) was far less impressive, with a less sturdy frame rate and lower visual detail.”

Agreed. Reading about this game makes it sound absolutely amazing, but the trailers keep looking quite mediocre. In particular, the shooting just does not look like it is going to have much umph behind it. I also don’t see much of the previously mentioned freerunning stuff, which is surely the biggest selling point.

Still, I remain optimistic and, as others have said, this is clearly console footage.

I played the game a few days ago at PAX, and I can tell you that while it looks a bit stiff, you quickly become used to it and it doesn’t detract from it at all (and I was playing on PS3, which is apparently the worst system to play it on). If you’ve played Quake Wars, you’ll know what I mean – the movement is precise, instead of fluid, which makes the footage look kind of jerky, but when you’re playing it it doesn’t feel that way at all.

That being said, I can’t really give an opinion of the game overall, because my team lost in about 8 minutes (and most of those minutes were me trying to figure out how to work the controls on the damn console toy). Felt like a competent manshoot on the surface, hopefully the more in-depth stuff like goals and the nuances between the classes (I simply played as assault) elevate it a bit higher.

It sounds great in theory, and i loved the movement in mirror’s edge. But I’ve yet to find a trailer that doesn’t look like every other multiplayer FPS out there – guys standing in rooms, guys running sideways in rooms.

I was talking to a console gamer about Vanquish last month, and he was impressed by it’s fluid movement, so i said “did you hear about Brink – it’s supposed to be great for movement.”. So we googled a few trailers, and he looked at me like i was nuts.

Hopefully it does have some fluid movement WHICH IS ACTUALLY USED IN THE GAME and the videos are just really badly made to illustrate it.

Wouldn´t it be sad if it turned out to have some really lame but critical flaw, such as being a crappy bug-riddled mess, or having an unsatisfying selection of weapons. I have faith it won´t based on what I´ve seen so far, which isn´t really much considering it ain´t even out yet.

Agreed. The classes look to keep the exact same function as ET (except the soldier has got the engineer’s ability to destroy objectives). I did wonder quietly where the Field Ops has gone. Who will throw pretty smoke that turns into ultra-death now?

Seriously, the trouser theft was a good gameplay concept. When you ran across a dead teammate showing off his Spongebob undercrackers then you knew there was a disguised enemy around. The trailer seemed to indicate that in Brink the body you steal a disguise from simply disappears.

I’m intrigued by this. Not for the gameplay or the overdone gimps & guns scenario, no, not for either. But the settings and the architecture actually looked a little bit interesting, brave even, perhaps. There was stuff there that reminded me of the retro-future tech, art deco, and gothic stylings of first person shooters long forgotten.

I thought that had been lost to the sands of time – that an FPS level could actually be a thing of beauty, rather than just another dull series of corridors or outdoor areas which serve their purpose but don’t actually do anything to make people want to look at them. I remember that there used to be some UT maps that were actually worth strolling around in, just to have a look at them, and that lasted up until about UT 2003 maybe, perhaps even the ’04 variant.

Then all that disappeared. Not sure where it went. And UT3 paled by comparison, really.

Intrigued by this, quietly so. It’s been a long time since a shooter has given me something that I may actually want to look at.

(Also, if they allow for custom player models, I may just be sold on this… I need a spiritual successor to the things that I loved in the UT of yore, and no shooter has really done that. Thiiiis might. Maybe. Possibly! I remain hopeful.)

It’s looking fast paced, which is good. It’s also looking ugly – how can they put up a trailer with no shadow cast in a 2011 game ? I remember first screenshots looking incredibly beautiful, but this video just looks incredibly average. That being said I fast paced > nice looking and I still dig the design itself. May be worth it although I am really not much anymore in that kind of game those days…

Still not getting the hype around Brink. It’s another Enemy Territory with some really bland animation and combat that doesn’t seem to have moved past Quake 2 multiplayer in its basic run and gun mechanics. Can’t I have some recoil on my guns, some innovative melee combat, some per-pixel damage modelling, some.. Well.. Depth?! D:
The movement systems look fun, but I’m wondering why they’ve shown so little of the claimed flexibility in the actual videos. I’d hope for at least Mirror’s Edge grade movement freedom, but it seems a lot more limited than that here.
It all looks.. Like something that should have been released five years ago :(

.. Edit: Basically, Tribes 2 was deeper and more interesting than this a very, very long time ago. Planetside had the same basic style applied to a colossal open world game with hundreds of people in a single battle while granting the player far more freedom in how and where he sets up defensive structures.

Brink is a massive step backwards, not forwards – just like TF2. Why are we glorying in retro and making retro the mainstream? Why are we clinging to the simplistic instead of trying anything new?

Or.. Well, since there’s not really anything -wrong- with Brink other than lack of ambition, I just want to know why everyone is so fucking hyped about something so average O.o I can’t justify paying for it on my finances but I hope I get to play it oneday. It just doesn’t matter any more to me than the lightest of silly entertainment. Brink is the Timecop to Planetside: Next or Firefall’s Total Recall =D

What are you talking about? Go watch the videos for SMART on the site. They showcase how flexible the movement is perfectly. And if you want innovative melee combat get ready to slide under stuff into people’s legs, knocking them over how does that sound you negative nancy.

It doesn’t look.. Well.. It’s mantling like SS2/Thief did just shy of fifteen years ago, sliding which isn’t exactly complicated or very fun (but grossly overused, I imagine, like prone-diving in Day of Defeat and Battlefield 2), and a bit of running on walls which every game made did for a few years after the Matrix was released (and with small resurrections at the release of each sequel)…

His logic is broken. TF2 shows that big healthbars and low-power weapons only create a wider gulf between expert players and newcomers, by allowing them to master the flexibility of their character and the dynamics of movement to avoid damage.

If one bullet can kill, the best player in the world still has to fear the newbie, and respect him as a risk and a danger.

Brink is severely lacking in ‘umph’, the OP is correct. Ham’s populist ravings and crude attempt to convince newcomers and casual players that Brink will allow them to win because it’s more ‘fair’ are an insult and an embarassment to players of every skill-level.

‘Fair’ is a tricky word – I recently read a linguistics debate around the idea that it’s originally an Anglo-Saxon concept and untranslatable out of English, i.e. that the vast majority of humanity has no idea what you’re talking about. In any case, you appear to have confused two of the possibly related meanings here. You’re talking about equal chance of winning or getting a particular frag, he’s talking about knowing why you got fragged. Try again.

It’s pretty, but the gameplay looks too familiar to stir up any interest here.

I predict a burst of popularity when it’s released and then most people abandon it and go back to TF2, except a stubborn handful who remain, telling themselves (and everyone else) that this is superior, because it’s “TF2 without hats”.

Had this pre-ordered for a while now, the european pre-order bonuses have been announced as well with Amazon, Game and Play offering different stuffs. I’m quietly excited as I’m not really playing TF2 anymore.

The problem with many multiplayer shooters is the unlockables. If you don’t start playing at day 1, you will immediately be left behind and playing the game when everyone else has all the toys and you have none is just not fun. I only recently started to play BC2, and boy was I surprised my medic couldn’t even heal or revive people! I don’t mind unlockables per se, but if it takes all of my free time to actually see some progress, I’m out.

Sadly there are unlockables. The Agile and Heavy bodytypes are unlocked early, and locked essentially as a tutorial thing to make sure people have seen the benefits and drawbacks before trying to drive them. The clothes don’t affect gameplay.

The perks and the gun mods…are the most worrisome to people like you and me who resent absolutely any form of grinding. Perks are things like being able to look around while interacting with an object, getting warned when a crosshair’s on you, being able to self-rez as a Medic, running silently…wacky GUI and gameplay stuff. The major limiting factors that hopefully make them OK are that A: Everybody can carry three and only three perks and B: There aren’t enough leveling points by the level cap to have all of them available to a particular character, so they were chosen on the way up. The gun mods…SD promises that all of them have tradeoffs. Radar presence for less damage. Better spread from the hip for worse spread on ironsights. Vice versa. Bigger magazine for overall spread increase. Whether they’ve kept that promise we’ll see on release, but even in the best case you will run into a player with a mod you would like to use that you can’t yet. Hopefully it won’t be too bad.

I loved RTCW:ET, and this is looking very similar. But I’m still on the wall since a lot of things seem very stiff for a fast paced shooter. Maybe it’s because of the console footage, I don’t know. Another thing I am worrying about is the amount of customization. ET was very simple, which I think added to it’s greatness. This is all very complicated with 1000’s of combinations between character and gear, which to me sounds like a massive potential balance flaw.

I bloomin’ wish people would stop saying its a TF2 clone.
As someone else put it, Brink is a spiritual sequal to Enemy Territory. Just because it has classes in it, it doesn’t mean that it is a clone of TF2… which is an awful game by the way and simply pales in comparison to Enemy Territory.

it is a great game, i played it a QuakeCon 2010 and it played like a dream. The movement style is great, you basically hold down Sprint and you automatically vault over/slide under obstacles. The guns are a blast and they sound great. Also, we played brink on PCs, but instead of mouse keyboard, they had 360 controller hooked up to the PCs